“The Voice of Hind Rajab” worked last year’s festival circuit with no distributor but plenty of A-list support (Brad Pitt, Rooney Mara and Joaquin Phoenix all ended up boarding the film as executive producers). When it debuted at the Venice Film Festival in September, writer-director Kaouther Ben Hania won the Grand Jury Prize (considered the festival’s second-place prize) and the film received a 23-minute standing ovation. “The Voice of Hind Rajab” also played at the nearby Toronto International Film Festival and has received universal praise for its powerful depiction of Israel’s presence in Gaza, most recently landing an Oscar nomination for Best International Feature Film (as Tunisia’s entry). The gut-wrenching docudrama is set in Gaza, amidst the aftermath of October 7, 2023, and is self-described as a “dramatization based on real events” that takes place in Gaza in January 2024. The movie opens at the Palestine Red Crescent Center Emergency Call Center in Ramallah, West Bank, which the onscreen text indicates as being 52 miles from Gaza. Since the Israeli bombings, emergency calls from Gaza have been transferred to the Red Crescent. The devastation is impossible to ignore, but opening moments of the movie feel calm, as if answering heartbreaking calls has become the new normal for these volunteers. Everything changes when Omar (Motaz Malhees) answers a call from a six-year-old girl named Hind Rajab, who is trapped in a car with the dead bodies of her family members. As the horrors continue to amass by the minute, Omar quickly realizes there is no such thing as ‘just another day’ in this line of work. Omar is understandably shaken by Hind’s pleas for help, set to the cacophonous sounds of tanks and gunfire in the background. It becomes an all-hands-on-deck situation to get an ambulance to Hind. When Omar becomes increasingly shaken by the situation, his fellow volunteer Rana (Saja Kilani) jumps in to offer Hind a calm voice and some distraction while Omar argues protocol with his supervisor Mahdi (Amer Hlehel). At a mere 89 minutes, “The Voice of Hind Rajab” is tense, disturbing and delivers a blaring sense of urgency in every frame, which is its power. How Ben Hania creates such tension and pressure is a bit more questionable and can even detract from the film’s mission. When the volunteers are talking to Hind, the recordings heard are the actual recordings of six-year-old Hind, begging for someone to save her life. It’s a technique used to confront the audience with the truth of what has happened in Gaza, but was it the ethical way to tell this story? It’s a question to be wrestled with, even after multiple viewings of the movie. It’s impossible to be unaffected by “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” especially due to the performances of Malhees and Kilani. Their in-the-moment reactions trying to get aid to Hind show a desperation and hopelessness that is believable enough to think they are actual volunteers from that January day, rather than actors in a movie. The decision to use real-life recordings feels even more morally questionable for a movie that could have conveyed so much with just these two central performances. However, Ben Hania received permission from Hind’s family to use the recordings as part of the movie. The intention behind using them is noble — and perhaps vital — but feels like a situation of “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.” Hearing the firsthand account of what Hind witnessed from the car creates an unshakable movie experience, but ultimately feels like a young girl’s terrorized pleas for help were used as a filmmaking device.  Matthew Passantino is a freelance film critic and a member of the Critics Choice Association and the Greater Western New York Film Critics Association. The post REVIEW | ‘The Voice of Hind Rajab’ appeared first on CITY Magazine. Arts. Music. Culture.. ...read more read less